Wilco - The Whole Love

Over its respectable 17-year career, Wilco has, if nothing else, excelled at one thing: being quite average at making good music. This may seem harsh on the surface, but digging deeper it’s just another way of saying the music is good, but it’s not that good. Most of Wilco’s eight studio albums are a fine collection of tunes, many of which demonstrate an amount of thought and craftsmanship, especially Sky Blue Sky, but none necessarily providing that wow factor. In fact, Rolling Stone described Wilco as “one of America’s most consistently interesting bands,” and while it’s hard to disagree with that statement, it might be more appropriate to debate the intent of the word “interesting.”

Wilco is definitely interesting. It’s been an interesting collaboration of artists—a revolving door of members, all with their own talents, but none (besides lead Jeff Tweedy) ever truly standing out. It has an interesting catalog of songs and styles—a mixture of folk and rock with that tinge of indie punk, mostly enjoyable on the surface but often lacking in depth. So interesting is definitely appropriate, but maybe more as an explanation of what is missing rather than what is there.

The Whole Love, the band’s latest release, is unfortunately par for the course. It’s interesting. It’s interesting to contemplate why three minutes of the seven-minute opening track is wasted on pointless guitar noise. It’s interesting that the title to this same track is “The Art of Almost,” as that could practically be the summation of Wilco’s career—the art of almost being great. It’s interesting to hear tracks like “Dawned on Me,” “Capitol City” and “Whole Love” that bring out the best in the band and wonder what it is that the others are missing. It’s interesting to guess why a solid tune like “One Sunday Morning” would be effectively wrecked by stretching it over 12 long minutes, offering little-to-no variation along the way. Interesting indeed.

To be clear though, Wilco is not a bad band, and overall, The Whole Love, like the others, is decent. There’s talent present. There’s variety in styles and instrumentation among and within the tracks. There’s a degree of depth in structure. It’s not overly-aggressive but rather quite placid. But unfortunately it, like the others, is missing that one key element, that one extra piece that takes it from being just okay good music to really good music. Maybe it’s that the styles, while varied, are sometimes stale. Maybe it’s that the structures, while beyond elementary, can be hasty and end up repetitive as a result. To be honest, I’m not sure what it is. And if I thought encouraging words would make a difference, I would offer them, but unfortunately, I think we’ve seen the best they can and will offer.

Rating
Overall: 3/5
Originality: 2.5/5
Production: 3/5
Listenability: 3/5